What letter-grade would you give Notre Dame for their 2019 football season?
Perhaps this is an exercise that myself and Jeff Feyerer will do in the coming days but the USA TODAY’s Paul Myerburg did exactly that, giving all 130 FBS teams a letter grade.
One thing to remember about the grade is that it was given strictly on final win-loss record but it’s also graded based on expectations back in the pre-season.
24 teams nationwide received a letter grade of at least an “A-“, but Notre Dame was not one of them.
The Irish instead checked in with a “B+”, as did 14 other teams including Wisconsin, Penn State and Week One opponent, Louisville.
I don’t have much of a fuss to make about Myerburg’s grade for the Irish as it was a successful failure to quote “Apollo 13”.
Brian Kelly’s Fighting Irish accomplished a lot, winning a 10 or more games for the third time in a row, something that had only been done once previously in school history.
But they lost their two biggest contests of the year at Georgia and Michigan, with the loss in Ann Arbor being a 45-14 disaster that will unfortunately be the first thing many remember the 2019 squad for.
I tend to agree with Kelly who said immediately following the 33-9 win over Iowa State in the Camping World Bowl that it was a good team who had one bad night.
Unfortunately that one bad night kept them from potential A-territory and out of the College Football Playoff conversation in November.
For that I can’t be as generous and give them even a B+, as good as some things were.
My grade for the year is a solid “B” as the Michigan disaster did occur while the biggest wins came against two teams Navy and Virginia who you won’t find in any post-season top 15.
For what it’s worth, Notre Dame’s 2019 opponents received the following grades:
A: Navy
A-: Georgia, Virginia
B+: Louisville
B: Iowa State
B-: Michigan, Virginia Tech
C+: Duke
C: Boston College, USC
D+: Bowling Green, Stanford
D: New Mexico